"He is harmless, but mad, this fellow," he murmured; "I have often spoken with him while I abode at the house of Don Raphael of Collioure. He hath had in his youth some smattering of letters, but now what little lear he had trots all skimble-skamble in his head. Yet, failing our young Dominican of Sens--well, we might go farther and fare worse." Then he turned to Jean-aux-Choux. "Your message, shepherd?" he said. "Fear nothing. We shall not harm you." "Had I supposed so, you would not have found me here--out of the mouth of the lion, and out of----" "That will do," said Mariana, cutting him short; "whence come you?" "From the camp of two kings, a great and a little, a true and a false, the lion and the dog----" "Speak plainly--we have little time to waste!" "Plainly then, I have seen the meeting of Henry of Valois and Henry of Navarre! They fell each on the other's neck and kissed!" The two inquisitors rose to their feet. For the first time emotion showed on their faces. The chief, tall, black, sombre, stood and threatened Jean-aux-Choux with comminatory forefinger. "If you speak lies, beware!" The little Italian, formerly so grey and still, nothing stirring about him save the restless, beady eyes common to all Neapolitans, stood up and vociferated. "It is an open defiance of our Holy Father," he cried, "a shame of shames--the Valois shall be accursed! He has delivered his realm to the Huguenot. He shall be burnt alive, and I--I would refuse him the _viaticum_!" "He may not have time even for that!" said Mariana softly--"that is, when his day comes. But haste you, man, tell us what befel--where, and how." "On Sunday last," began Jean-aux-Choux, looking his three inquisitors in the face with the utmost calm, "I was, as Father Mariana knows, in a certain place upon the affairs of my master. "It was in a park near a great city of many towers. A river ran near by and a bridge spanned it. At the bridge-head were three great nobles--dukes and peers of France, so they said. Many people were in the park and about the palace which stood within it. There seemed no fear. The place was open to all. About a chapel door they cried 'God save the King!' For within a man, splendidly arrayed, was hearing mass--I saw him enter." The inquisitors looked at one another, nodding expressively. "But I cared not for that. I was at the bridge-head, and almost at my elbow the three nobles conferred one with the other, doubtful if he for whom they waited would come. "'I should not, if I were he,' said one of them; 'my father did the like, and died! Only he had a written promise.'" "That was Chatillon, Coligny's son, I warrant," said Mariana, who seemed to know everything. "And another said, 'He has my word--he will believe that, though he doubts that of the King!'" "Epernon, for a wager!" cried the Jesuit, clapping his hands; "there spoke the man! And the third, what said he?"